Vaccines and Therapeutics 2.0 & 3.0 Merge

[Kishkumen]

Looking forward to getting my new booster shot!

[Jersey Girl]

HEADS UP if you fall into this category. Pfizer and Moderna for folks 50+ years old. It's coming.

FDA expected to OK additional Covid-19 booster shots for adults over 50 next week
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/26/health/c ... index.html

Thanks for the heads up.

You're welcome. There's a study about how it holds up against the BA.2 variant. Seems like the conclusion (so far) is that as with the Omicron first variant, it will keep people out of the hospital and well, the morgue.

[Jersey Girl]

Looking forward to getting my new booster shot!

That's good to hear! I'm finally going on a trip in late April so am definitely getting the next booster. The last booster knocked me out for a couple or three days with fatigue only. I say it's worth it to have that added layer of protection.

[Res Ipsa]

Thanks for the heads up.

You're welcome. There's a study about how it holds up against the BA.2 variant. Seems like the conclusion (so far) is that as with the Omicron first variant, it will keep people out of the hospital and well, the morgue.

I would like to avoid both places, and will get boosted.

[Res Ipsa]

Interesting piece in Foreign Affairs about how the US handled the pandemic so far and Issues that need to be addressed going forward. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles ... t=20220327

I think Mike Ryan of the WHO made the best observation. The underfunded, bottoms up approach to the pandemic meant that we had to deal with 50 pandemic instead of one. It just didn’t work. Like so many other public goods in the US, we’ve let our public health systems deteriorate through neglect. As with our other decaying infrastructure, chronic underfunding will continue to bite us in the ass.

[Res Ipsa]

Observations from an epidemiologist I follow on the first real world data on the effect of bivalent boosters on transmission. https://open.substack.com/pub/yourlocal ... dium=email

Given Omicron's ability to evolve for immune escape, the numbers are better than I expected. Data on protection against severe disease is yet to come.

[Res Ipsa]

In another study, taking Paxlovid within the first fivedayd associated with a 51% reduction in hospitalization. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/ ... 48e2-H.pdf

[Res Ipsa]

Well, crap. Disappointing results in phase 1 trial of nasal vaccine. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-022-00106-z

[Jersey Girl]

There's current coverage of a new variant we haven't posted about, too. Not in the mood right now but it's online for the taking. Rotten little thing that evades immunity.

[Res Ipsa]

There's current coverage of a new variant we haven't posted about, too. Not in the mood right now but it's online for the taking. Rotten little thing that evades immunity.

You're talking about XBB 1.5, right? I've done a little reading. It's a recombination of two BA.2 variants. It's actually pretty interesting. The original XBB was a trade off between immune escape and ability to bind to the spike protein. It had higher immune escape, but accomplished that in a way that reduced its ability to bind. XBB 1.5 has a mutation that removes the binding part of the tradeoff. So, XBB 1.5's increased ability to transmit over XBB is not improved immune escape, but improved ability to attach to the receptor on the spike protein. It's fascinating to me how quickly we can discover mutations and their specific effect.

Yeah, I know. Nerdy.

The good news is, no evidence that it causes more serious disease. And the bivalent booster appears to still be protective.

The bad news is that more people having COVID at the same time will increase strain on the healthcare system.

And we still don't know much about long COVID or the effect of repeated infection with COVID.